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Vancouver Picks Doing Nothing Over Proposed Transit Tax

The transit-tax referendum was clearly designed to fail: most people won't vote for more taxes, and the province's premier knows that.

A Vancouver bus. Wow. Photo via Flickr user Yukihiro Matsuda

If you ever want to strike up a passionate conversation with someone living in a major Canadian city, just mention the crappy state of said city's transit and prepare for a gush of righteous rage. Better yet, put it to a vote.

"Hey there sheeple, how'd you like to vote in a non-binding plebiscite to find out whether you'd prefer a new tax to pay for transit infrastructure or have the government continue to figure it out for themselves." This was the moral can of worms Vancouverites recently found themselves writhing in.

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The referendum was put forward by the understandably frustrated Mayor's Council and asked Metro Vancouver voters to accept a proposed 0.5-percent increase to the provincial sales tax to pay for, among other things, a new subway line to the University of British Columbia, light rail in neighbouring city Surrey, a new bridge, more buses, and (yawn) road, pedestrian, and cycling improvements.

Why this was even a question is mind-blowing. Nobody wins, except the Liberal provincial government. Here's why.

If people vote "yes," BC Premier Christy Clark says, "We'll see if that's possible." People vote "no," and she gets to say, "No new taxes!" Guess what? People said no.

I mean, in what jurisdiction in the world would people vote for a new tax? None. Definitely not the Banana Smoothie Republic of Vancouver that fancies itself a fishing village-cum-resort town for the international jet-set. Not Vancouver's follow-the-herd suburbs, lured by the anti-tax rhetoric of astro-turf Randians making themselves out to be "the little guy." And yet there was a tiny part of me, let's call it the naive optimism of my now faded youth, that thought, maybe we did want to say, "Yeah, we know TransLink is awful, and we know this plebiscite is non-binding, and we know that a billionaire car salesman is going to oversee the funds, and we know the mayors have no backbone and spent $6 million on advertising, and…" Oh, god.

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Alas, if you were to go by Facebook reactions (and who wouldn't?), people were legitimately surprised by the outcome. Some people, unaware they look like Americans protesting the Supreme Court decision, were even threatening to move. I'd blame the result on the heatwave-induced boiled brains of the hoi polloi if the plebiscite wasn't so cleverly engineered in the first place.

Back in February, former city councillor Gordon Price was already calling it the Great Dupe. "TransLink, without an identifiable leader and a board without electoral accountability, was an ideal target. Hence the disproportionate attack on its performance. The goal: to get voters to justify a 'No' vote without, in their minds, voting against transit—which is what, of course, they are actually doing."

Indeed, as Vancouver-area transportation expert Stephen Rees reminded us, "most of the problems that beset TransLink at the moment all have their genesis with the provincial government. Christy Clark has done one brilliant job: she has deflected all the criticism of her failure to authorize adequate resources for running the transportation system in BC's largest metropolis onto an organization that she herself controls."

Premiers across the country take note: if you want to look like you're doing something to address financing transit shortfalls, follow Clark's lead. The people will be too confused to know they are only shooting themselves in the foot. Sorry every other city in Canada, but we blew it.

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And TransLink isn't even that shitty. I mean it's really bad, but what major metropolis is truly satisfied with their transportation authority? (I'm looking at you, Toronto). Columnist and former Vancouver city councillor Peter Ladner notes that there's far more good news than bad in TransLink numbers. "The number of trips by transit is up 80 percent since 2000 … an overall 7.4 out of 10 customer satisfaction rating in the last quarter … and the items commonly cited as examples of TransLink's storied wastefulness add up to a mere fraction of one per cent of its annual expenditures." Good or bad, it's a red herring. TransLink wasn't on the ballot. It's like people didn't even see my paste-ups all around town that read "TransLink isn't on the ballot."

Clark knew this. The whole thing was, as writer Nicholas Ellan argued, "a pseudo-democratic charade, an exercise in populist rage against an organization, TransLink, that they have actively sabotaged for as long as they have been in power. It's a well-performed charade, though. You have to admire the choreography." No, no I do not. I'd much rather sit here and blame the suburbs, or drivers who think they shouldn't have to pay for public transit (or the roads they drive on), or people who complain about bike lanes. Unfortunately, it's a lot more complex than that.

Instead, we're spinning in circles. And we've been spinning long before creation of TransLink in 2000. As journalist Crawford Killian reminds us, "we committed, in the Social Credit era, to SkyTrain. It looked cool at Expo 86, but its expensive extensions have caused endless political and economic misery. Now we seem stuck with it for any kind of rapid transit." As Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan says, "buses aren't sexy." Infrastructure as a sex symbol, no wonder we were doomed from the start.

So what's next? The Clark government will surely tout the well worn line, "The people have spoken." But what have they even said? Trim the excess? Downsize transit, (lol)? As The Exile writes, "how making those with low incomes, students, new immigrants, and the elderly wait longer for the 99 B-line will induce Christy Clark to give TransLink executives a salary haircut is a mystery to me." It's even a mystery to the mayor of Vancouver, who has admitted there is no plan B. "Ultimately it's up to the province to decide how the funding gap is met," Robertson said. You mean like with, um, taxes? It feels like I'm the one taking crazy pills here.

In lieu of a massive grassroots anti-austerity campaign, or unless Thomas Mulcair really is the second coming of Tommy Douglas, we're stuck. We're stuck with a populace that wants better transit but doesn't want to pay for it. We're stuck with a provincial government that is constantly abrogating their basic responsibilities, leaving municipalities scrambling. We're stuck like an angry commuter in a kilometre long traffic-jam of their own miserable making.

Follow Sean Orr on Twitter.